MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 73 



arrived, was no doubt driven back, but was probably 

 assimilated rather than exterminated by the Celtic 

 invaders from the East, who brought with them a know- 

 ledge of working in copper and inaugurated the age of 

 bronze. The characteristic weapons and implements of the 

 Neolithic Age are made of flint and other hard stone, 

 usually finely chipped and ground at the edges, and some- 

 times polished with a beautiful finish. Most of the imple- 

 ments, however, were not polished, and the axe-heads are 

 rarely perforated. The art of making pottery was known, 

 spinning and weaving were practised, and all our 

 common farm animals were domesticated. 



Neolithic man in this country was small, averaging, 

 it is calculated from the bones, about 5 feet in height, and 

 had a long narrow (dolichocephalic) skull. The type is 

 thought to be still recognisable amongst the smaller, dark 

 Manks people ; and the worship of " holy " wells, and 

 the reverence for the tumulus and the standing stones 

 may be regarded as a survival from these far back pre- 

 Aryan times. 



There seems reason to believe that the use of copper 

 spread in late Neolithic times from Cyprus along the 

 shores of the Mediterranean to Western Europe ; but the 

 coming of copper and bronze to Britain is usually asso- 

 ciated with invasion of the country by an Aryan race, the 

 Celts, who were taller than the Neolithic inhabitants, and 

 had rounded (brachycephalic) skulls. The finest types of 

 polished stone implements were made in this age along 

 with the bronze weapons and tools that characterised it. 



The Celtic tribes that invaded the West of Europe at 

 the end of the later Stone Age have been divided into an 

 earlier " Goidelic " (the Graedhils of Ireland, Scotland and 

 the Isle of Man) and a later " Brythonic " wave, separated 

 possibly by centuries. The Groidels probably absorbed 



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